Reuters Thursday April 3, 2:18 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices on Thursday bounced back from heavy recent falls as the sustained loss of crude supply from Iraq and Nigeria threatened to cap a rebound in U.S. oil inventories.

U.S. crude futures were 52 cents up at $29.08, while benchmark Brent crude oil in London rose 33 cents to $25.54 per barrel. U.S. crude has fallen by more than $10, or 27 percent from a 12-year high hit in late February.

ADVERTISEMENTPrices have dropped by four percent this week alone, weighed down by a big jump in U.S. crude stocks as Saudi Arabia's drive to lift oil production pushed U.S. imports to record levels.

The fatter inventory cushion has yet to allay fears that supply losses from Nigeria and Iraq, both normally among the top six oil importers to the United States, will keep U.S. supplies tight for months to come.

"It is by no means clear that imports can be maintained...once the cushion of extra oil in the supply chain over the next few weeks begins to abate," said Paul Horsnell, analyst at investment bank J.P.Morgan.

Iraq's exports have been at a standstill since the early days of the U.S.-led attack. Nigeria has seen its output slashed by 40 percent by unrest in the delta region ahead of elections later in April.

The impact has yet to be felt in the United States because oil takes weeks to arrive in tankers. Nigeria's oil is particularly important to U.S. refiners in summer as it is good for making gasoline.

"We still believe that the U.S. market will have difficulty in avoiding a significant gasoline price spike this summer," Horsnell added.

OPEC (News - Websites)INCREASE

The OPEC producer cartel has eased supply concerns by pumping eight percent more than its self-imposed supply ceiling in March, a Reuters survey showed.

Key U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, home to the world's biggest oil reserves and output capacity, pumped at its highest level in 21 years. Analysts say that recent price falls may soon encourage to reverse some production increases.

Renewed signs of U.S. economic weakness, which may in turn weaken demand growth, have also helped ease supply fears.

The number of new U.S. jobless claims last week jumped to its highest in nearly a year, the government said on Thursday, offering little hope for a turnaround in a grim labor market.

The jump in jobless claims has coupled with data this week showing a pull-back in the vast services sector, contraction in manufacturing and a hefty drop in factory orders to reveal a bleak picture of the U.S. economy.

Growth in U.S. gasoline demand, which soaks up nearly 12 percent of the world's oil supply, has already ground to a halt in recent weeks as record high pump prices keep drivers off the roads.

U.S. gasoline demand over the last four weeks was 0.1 percent below last year, according to a government report on Wednesday. Demand was routinely 2-4 percent above 2002 levels at the start of this year.

Source NEW DELHI (AFP) Apr 03, 2003 The Iraq war has shrivelled India's mango exports to the Gulf but has created a bonanza for the domestic market where top brands of the "king of fruits" are now easy picking.

India accounts for almost 65 percent of the world's mango production but it exports less than one percent of its yield compared to four percent by smaller rivals such as Mexico, the Philippines and Venezuela.

"Now we are doomed as two-thirds of our mangoes are exported to the Gulf, where our Alphonso reigned as the king of fruits for decades," said Nasiruddin Jesani, secretary of India's Fresh Vegetable and Fruit Association (FVFA).

The Alphonso is the most expensive variety of mango in India with a dozen priced at more than 900 rupees (18.75 dollars), compared to other popular strains which sell for just over two dollars for 12.

FVFA president Babu Ramchandani, who is also one of India's largest fruit exporters, said the US-led war in Iraq came just at the beginning of the mango season.

"And so between 40 to 50 percent of our mango trade is now affected both in terms of value as well as in volume and we cannot say whether we will regain our market after this war ends there," he said.

India exported 22,793 kilograms (50,144 pounds) of mangoes worth 438 million rupees (9.12 million dollars) in the fiscal year ended March 1993 and the figure nearly doubled to 809 million rupees (16.85 million dollars) in the year ending 2002.

Officials from the India's Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) said they had expected a 20 percent jump in overseas sales this year because of particularly good crops.

"But now we have to re-write these targets because people are returning from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states where mango was a popular dessert among the region's four million Indian community," an APEDA official said.

India's mango exports are mostly confined to the Gulf, although some of the produce reaches Britain and Russia.

Both FVFA chief Ramachandani and Jesani said the trade could not turn to European markets as foreign airlines are demanding steeper freight rates from products from India compared to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Kenya or South Africa.

"The freight charges we are now paying are the world's highest. We pay 135 rupees (2.8 dollars) for one kilogram (2.2 pounds) from Bombay to Canada while Pakistani exporters have to pay almost half, so who will buy from us?" Jesani asked.

"We are at the mercy of the airlines and they are exploiting the situation." He said South Africa's national carrier slashed its freight charges to India which meant the India market was flooded with foreign produce.

But the rates have tumbled by half to between 350 and 400 rupees per dozen, bringing the Alphonso for the first time within the reach of India's domestic consumers, according to United News of India news agency.

D.V. Parkar of the privately-run Parkar Fruit Products company said growers were now forced to sell locally what had been marked for export.

Indian consumers welcomed the windfall.

"Now we don't have to watch with envy those rich Arabs sinking their teeth into our Alphonsos... It is time we too got a taste of the mango," said fruit retailer Gulab Das from New Delhi's fruit wholesale Azadpur Market.

<a href=www.nytimes.com>The New York Times By NEELA BANERJEE

The price of oil fell 4 percent yesterday, as traders took heart that supplies might be growing soon because of the recent progress of coalition forces in Iraq and increases in oil supplies in the United States.

Oil for May delivery was down $1.22, to $28.56 a barrel, at the end of trading yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The price of oil has fallen nearly 8 percent in the last two days alone. But oil traders and industry experts cautioned that the decline was the latest swing in a market that would remain volatile for weeks because of political conflict in several major oil-producing states.

Oil exports from Iraq have been suspended. Ethnic conflict in the oil-rich Niger Delta has compelled three Western oil companies to forgo nearly 800,000 barrels a day of oil production in Nigeria. And though exports have risen from strike-torn Venezuela, many industry experts question how sustainable those shipments are.

"There are still so many balls in the air and none have come down yet," said Eric Bolling, an independent oil trader and member of the Mercantile Exchange's board. "We still have Iraq. We still have Nigeria. We still have Venezuela."

The oil markets are reacting to news from Iraq, more than anything, traders said.

So far this week, the markets have been buoyed by several reports that seemed to reinforce the sense that the United States-led forces have gained the upper hand, including the rescue of a prisoner of war Tuesday and victories on the road to Baghdad, Mr. Bolling said.

"There's this schizoid view of progress in Iraq," one Houston crude oil trader said. "The first few days, people thought the war would be over in a day. Then, last week, people thought it would take a year, and prices spiked. And now, there's a more positive view again."

Prices also fell because oil long promised by Saudi Arabia to compensate for the loss of Iraqi exports arrived in the United States, according to weekly data published by the Energy Department. Oil prices rose through much of the winter because inventories of crude oil and petroleum products like gasoline fell to alarmingly low levels because of the strikes in Venezuela and the prolonged cold weather.

But Energy Department data showed that stocks of crude oil for the week ended Friday increased 6.8 million barrels, far more than the 5 million barrels or so that many traders had expected, Mr. Bolling said. Imports of crude oil rose to an average of 10.4 million barrels a day last week, according to the data.

"The markets are now in a show-me mood," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. "They now see the presence of large crude oil imports for the last two weeks. So they believe that for time being, the worst is over for crude oil."

But because all the world's oil exporters are producing flat-out to compensate for the export suspensions in Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela, there is little room for any other malfunction in the system, experts and traders said. "There is still volatility going forward," Mr. Goldstein said. "You could have unscheduled refinery problems. Things could deteriorate in Nigeria or even Venezuela."

<a href=www.sfgate.com>SFGate.com Wednesday, April 2, 2003
(04-02) 17:22 PST MEXICO CITY (AP) --

Mexican stocks shook off some of the previous day's lethargy and closed higher Wednesday, tracking U.S. markets as they rallied on news of U.S. troop advances in Iraq.

The market's key IPC index closed up 1.9 percent or 112.75 points at 6,008.51. At the end of 2002, the IPC stood at 6,127.09.

Volume perked up a little from recent sessions, with 75.5 million shares exchanged worth 993.7 million pesos.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.7 percent and the Nasdaq composite index rose 3.6 percent on reports that U.S. troops have moved within miles (kilometers) of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Among the blue chips, bellwether Telmex L shares rose 2.5 percent to 16.16 pesos, media group Televisa CPO shares rose 1.7 percent to 13.99, wireless phone carrier America Movil L shares rose 2.1 percent to 7.44, and retailer Walmex V shares rose 2 percent to 26.51.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazilian shares ended higher Wednesday as investors were cheered by expectations that Congress will approve a bill that gives autonomy to the Central Bank.

The key Ibovespa index ended 2.42 percent higher at 11,872 points on financial volume of 1.42 billion reals. The high volume was helped by a 450 million-real sale of shares in steel maker CSN.

Traders said investors are optimistic Congress will approve the key measure that will remove regulation from Brazil's constitution and in so doing, make the Central Bank independent.

Shares in power distributor Eletropaulo, which has been pounded recently on uncertainties about the company's future as it faces the possibility of bankruptcy and return to government control, soared 7.48 percent to 24.70.

Oil giant Petrobras underperformed the index, climbing 1.45 percent to 48.29 reals while jet maker Embraer rose 1.66 percent to 10.40 reals.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Share prices on the Santiago Stock Exchange closed higher Wednesday, boosted by the rising prices on other share markets, led by Chilean American Depositary Receipts, traders said.

Chile's blue-chip Ipsa index rose 0.6 percent to 1,013.14 points from 1,006.93. The narrower Inter-10 index of more liquid, internationally traded Chilean shares gained 0.9 percent to 99.70 from 98.83.

Volume continued low at 4.95 billion from 4.54 billion.

Among the main U.S.-listed gainers, Banco Santander-Chile rose 2.3 percent to 13.15 and telecommunications company CTC's A-shares ended up 0.6 percent at 1,740.Utilities holding Enersis ended up 0.9 percent at 57.50.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan shares ended slightly higher Wednesday, with the IBC General Stock Index closing at 8593 points, up about 0.27 percent.

The market's biggest stock, telephone giant CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, or CANTV, closed 45 bolivars, or about 2 percent, higher at 2,395 bolivars.

CANTV's American Depositary Receipts, worth seven common shares each, were up 8 cents at US$8.93 each in late afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine stocks fell back Wednesday, with traders saying uncertainties connected with the upcoming elections were keeping investors subdued.

Since the start of October, the large-cap Merval Index has soared some 43 percent. However, the market fell back during March.

By the session's close, the Merval Index fell 4.29 points or 0.8 percent to 561.55 points. The broader General Index climbed 274.99 points, or 1 percent to 26,733.57 points.

Steel company Tenaris closed down 4.5 percent at 6.40, while food producer Molinos dipped 2.6 percent to 4.53.

Market leader Perez Companc slipped 2.4 percent to 2.05, as Argentina's antitrust body confirmed a fresh delay in approving the company's sale to Brazilian giant Petrobras.

Traders said with investors sitting out of the market at least until after the first round of presidential elections on April 27, the market just ignored Tuesday's relatively good economic news.

By David Boyce The Almanac Almanac Staff Writer

Much-honored science teacher Jill Baumgartel engages students with real-world experiences

If science seems a dry affair with stories of interest coming along only occasionally, it may be that you had uninspiring science teachers who, like many scientists before them, preferred the ivory tower over the open door and lecturing over collaboration.

Not so in the classroom of Woodside High School chemistry teacher Jill Baumgartel, where the energy and ferment of the open door and collaboration permeates the room.

Passing through her door have been students from many cultures and socio-economic situations. Some have built working rockets, with her advice and help. Others have designed and built experiments for the space shuttle, with her advice and help. For her efforts, she has received many honors.

And she brings the world to her classrooms and occasionally takes her classrooms to the world. In an era in which knowledgeable high school science teachers are a scarce resource, Ms. Baumgartel has two of the prime ingredients for effective teaching: credibility and good stories.

She had her first chemistry set at 8 years old; by 11, she had an advanced set, she says. After college in Michigan, she did graduate work at Princeton University under Hubert Alyea, a colleague of Albert Einstein, who, Prof. Alyea said, would sometimes audit his chemistry class, according to Ms. Baumgartel.

During her 22-year career, Ms. Baumgartel has been recognized by the University of California, MIT and the National Science Foundation. She has won several teaching awards, including, in October, San Mateo County Teacher of the Year. Space science

Ms. Baumgartel has a deep and abiding interest in space and space exploration. She's been recognized by nine times by NASA and again by the Cosmonaut Federation of the former USSR. On Friday, March 28, she attended a black tie dinner in Washington, D.C., to receive the 2003 National Space Club Space Educator award.

"It's the pinnacle of my career," she says. "I'm pretty honored that an educator is being recognized."

One outlet for her interest in space is amateur rocketry. In one corner of her classroom sits a thin cylindrical finned rocket body, a device that can capture the interest of reluctant science students, she says. They've made rockets from deodorant bottles, Crayola markers and empty whipped cream cans, she says. Some rockets have reached a height of 1,500 feet and have carried moths or beetles as passengers. Of the two, beetles seemed to enjoy the ride, she says.

In the past two years, Ms. Baumgartel has advised two teams of Woodside students in designing life-science experiments that won highly competitive slots on upcoming space shuttle missions, if and when they resume.

The first experiment studies the behavior of earthworms in space; the second looks at the effect of zero gravity on antibiotics. Both experiments have relevance for human beings living in zero-gravity environments, she says.

Ms. Baumgartel has twice been a crew member on NASA's airborne observatory. A specially equipped Boeing 747 takes scientists to 45,000 feet, where the air density is 20 percent of what it is at the Earth's surface, allowing astronomers to use onboard telescopes to observe space with much less atmospheric interference. And if you put a can of soda down on the floor of the plane, it freezes, she says.

The 14-hour missions are "real science," she says. "You have a problem with the telescope, you have to get in there and fix it. Science is not just working in a lab." On the mission, her ability to identify gases in the Orion nebula allowed her to bring her chemistry expertise to bear, she says.

Science may be her passion, but it is not all-consuming. She's now on her seventh passport. Over her career, Ms. Baumgartel, 45, has been to more than 35 countries, including 14 visited on a teaching sabbatical and several to which she was accompanied by Woodside students. Worldly science

With its dry formulas, abstract theories and rapid rate of change, science can be a hard sell to students.

Popular culture can be problematic too. Entertainment-driven mass media can drown out interest in subjects that require dedication and disciplined thought processes. Add a genuinely multi-cultural student population to the mix and a science teacher can be left wondering which way to turn.

And while a well-traveled history or language teacher can relate international experiences to the classroom, what does being well-traveled bring to a teacher in a field in which English and mathematics are the primary languages?

Ms. Baumgartel says her travel anecdotes help generate interest among her students.

For example, for a lesson on Boyle's Law, which concerns the behavior of gases at different temperatures and pressures, Ms. Baumgartel says she can talk about her hikes with Himalayan sherpas. "They're amazing. They climb in flip-flops," she says. Sherpa endurance has been attributed to larger lungs that enable them to cope with thinner colder air.

Such a simple example is easily demonstrated with a trip to the thin cold air of Lake Tahoe, she says, where local students can validate Boyle's Law by sensing how different they feel after exercising at that altitude.

In a discussion of the chemistry involved when matter changes from solid to liquid to gas, Ms. Baumgartel says she can mention the three days she once spent in the Rajasthan desert in India, traveling by camel and watching the normally invisible micrometeorites vaporizing and lighting up the night sky. A context like that can make the difference between a remembered lesson and a forgotten one.

Her travels have also shone light on her teaching methods, she says. During her ten-month, 14-country sabbatical in 1993-1994, she saw regional similarities and differences that caused her to reconsider her ideas.

"In Asia, science is a very serious matter," she says. Whereas in the United States, serious science education normally begins in the junior year, it's taught in all four years of secondary school in Japan, she says.

Science teachers are also revered there, she says. In Malaysia and Japan, students stand in appreciation at the end of class. But classes are often pure lecture and many kids go from regular school to "cram school" and don't get home until 10 p.m., she says.

She says she found kindred spirits and validation of her practices in Russian and Turkish classrooms, where science classes are a mix of lecture and demonstration with some humor thrown in. "It is something I like to use also. I try to include everyone. It's more of a light treatment of science," she says. Life on the road

Ms. Baumgartel grew up out of the country, spending her early years in Venezuela and some of her teen years in Singapore. When in Venezuela, her dad, who worked for General Motors, would take her for hikes high up in the Andes mountains, she says.

She also visited the Amazon rain forest and had her own collections of exotic insects, some of which she still has, though they have been turning to dust. In her Venezuelan backyard, she could find the horned rhinoceros beetle, the world's largest. It was in Venezuela that she was first struck with a love for science.

Singapore was somewhat less alluring. "They don't tolerate anything," she says. "There's a fine if you don't flush a public toilet. You spit on the sidewalk, big problem." It's a clean city, she says, but at a cost. "They take the filth from the city and they put it in the [harbor] water," she says.

But she appreciated the tiny one-room temples and the shaman-like characters who, from a trance-like state, would write answer to questions from passersby using blood drawn from their own tongues. Heroes

Albert Einstein is the first of her heroes, not just for his scientific prowess but because, against his father's wishes, he wanted to be a teacher. And, she says, because he could measure the universe "on the back of a matchbook," a reference to brevity of E = mc2, the special theory of relativity.

Another of her heroes is Madame Curie, who coined the term radioactivity and won two Nobel prizes.

But she reserves her greatest praise for her students. "They teach you things that you can't even fathom. I'm pretty certain that thee kids are going to make Earth a better place."

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